Bashing NJ I do get, but here is my question where do you go??

[BergenCountyJohnny]

Originally Posted by elflord1973

According to this study, the money is leaving NJ (AGI is out-migrating, as Bob pointed out).

I never said it wasn't. What I did say is that it is the result of a larger number of low to middle earners moving out while a smaller number of higher earners moves in along with many immigrants who don't bring high earning with them.

Originally Posted by elflord1973

The topic of the thread is "where are they moving to". According to the study, people (and their dollars) are moving out to NY, FL, PA, CA, NC, VA, GA, TX, ML and MA. Of these, there is a net positive (both numbers and dollars) from NY (meaning more people and more dollars go from NY to NJ than the other way around).

http://www.policy.rutgers.edu/reports/rrr/rrroct07.pdf

Actually, the topic of this thread (if you look at the top of the thread you'll see it) is:
"Bashing NJ I do get, but here is my question where do you go??"

So the question is, for those who bash NJ, which the OP understands (but I don't), where do you go? What's better than NJ that you go there?

It comes down to quality of life, a subjective item, compared to the costs of living in NJ. For some, it's worth it, for some, it's not.

What I don't understand is why so many go out of state when the things they want can be found in this state, even if not in the heavily populated areas such as those just outside NYC or Philly. Why live 40 minutes from Raleigh or Atlanta when you can have approximately the same thing 40 minute from Philly? So, yeah, where do you go, and why?

[BobKovacs]

Originally Posted by BergenCountyJohnny

It comes down to quality of life, a subjective item, compared to the costs of living in NJ. For some, it's worth it, for some, it's not.

What I don't understand is why so many go out of state when the things they want can be found in this state, even if not in the heavily populated areas such as those just outside NYC or Philly. Why live 40 minutes from Raleigh or Atlanta when you can have approximately the same thing 40 minute from Philly? So, yeah, where do you go, and why?

Actually, we did look at South Jersey, and weren't impressed with what we could get. While slightly less than North Jersey, anything within a reasonable commute to Philly is still expensive, and the taxes are still unreasonable (to me). Some other factors that kept us from moving to South Jersey:

- We knew we wanted a brand new house- we'd had one while living in Las Vegas, and liked the energy-efficiency, the space layouts, and the fact that we didn't want to be doing constant renovation/repairs as we did on our home in NJ. To get a brand new home within a reasonable commute to Philly would have been upwards of $500k, and the taxes would have been $8-10k minimum.

- We were tired of the snow and bitter cold in the winter. While South Jersey generally fares a bit better than North Jersey, we still weren't interested in dealing with it at all. Been there, done that.

- Both companies I worked for in NJ had offices in Philly, and they both suffered from the "gotta go, gotta have it yesterday" mentality that most of the Northeast suffers from, and I didn't want to deal with it. As I said in an earlier post, I work a fraction of the hours I used to, for essentially the same pay, as there's a lot more emphasis placed on family time down here. When you get comments like "what are you- some kinda wuss? There's only 6" of snow on the ground! Why do you have to work from home today?", something's wrong.....

As you said- it's all about "quality of life". If for you that means being able to go to the Jersey Shore or to NYC regularly, then you're not going to have a high "quality of life" in many other places. What matters for me is having time to spend with my kids, and not having to stay awake at night worrying about the next deadline and how maybe I should stay later in the office.

[Viralmd]

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